Cort MR750

This acoustic dreadnought-style guitar has a standard 22-fret fingerboard with a single cutaway. The body has a heavy, shiny finish, which usually turns me away from a guitar. Don't ask me about woods, but the color is slightly darker than normal, almost orangey.

There is an under-the-bridge pickup with included preamp and controls. Sounds very good plugged in or over a PA; I have recorded with this guitar plugged into the board as a secondary channel.

It sounds beautiful. I tend to play it acoustically, so effects and such are not applicable here. I'm able to go back and forth between strumming and fingerstyle and get a good volume out of both. Good mids, a hair low on bass response but still good.

I've fiddled with the action a bit, and replaced the synthetic bridge with a bone bridge.

The tuners are Grover closed machine heads in brass. The neck is a medium thickness and width. I had to add a single strap button. It's worth noting that the endpin jack is a three-screw model, not the sort that's tightened inside the guitar body. (Good for those of us with big hands and arms.) My one complaint is that the frets seem to be wearing a bit fast. Take that with a grain of salt, though, since I use heavy strings (.013s) constantly.

Oh, yes, the preamp is picky about batteries; that's a "gotcha" right there.

I have never had a problem with this guitar, outside of the battery problem (I now bring spares).

I've been playing almost 20 years, and this is the best guitar I've ever owned, acoustic or electric. While I've played better guitars, they're usually $1000 or higher. I've yet to find any other acoustic dreadnoughts with active electronics even approaching this quality in this price range.